Recovering our poi

One morning, I invited children to help me recover our poi with material. I wanted to do this with the children (rather than in my office time), as it is a bi-cultural experience for them. I wanted to talk about the importance of poi and ask the children what they thought they are used for. To begin with, we looked at the different patterns on the material we were using. There were taniwha's, a marae and koru designs etc. Donnagh helped me to do the first poi. We needed to follow a process: cut the material in to a big enough square, cover it over the poi, cut the string to tie around it, then wrap some cello-tape around it. Libby was confident in using the scissors and cut the material that needed to cover the poi. She also used the scissors to cut the string. Maia was extremely helpful and willing to participate. She helped to cut the material and string, and held the poi while I knotted the string around it. We needed to make sure we were covering them properly so they could be used effectively with poi dance. The children had fun using the poi later in the afternoon, spinning them around and using great co-ordination.

Ainslee